Friday, February 22, 2013

Freedom fighters will save the HRC

The Australian Human Rights Commission must correct its bias towards a left-wing human rights agenda by moving to appoint freedom commissioners.

The ideological mindset of the commission led opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis last week to ask the president of the commission, Gillian Triggs.

At best, the commission pays lip-service to the idea that it needs to strike a balance between old liberal rights — such as freedom of speech, religion and association — and new progressive rights such as the right not to be offended.

But, funnily enough, we only hear about the need for balance when the commission is criticised for its failure to promote the first category of rights.

There is a simple way to overcome this problem — the appointment of freedom commissioners. Currently, there are five commissioners of discrimination and social justice. Balance could be achieved by appointing five freedom commissioners: one each for freedom of speech, association, religion, property rights and the rule of law.

Such a structure could help to achieve real balance within the commission and assist in reversing the curtailment of our most fundamental human rights.

Freedom commissioners would be appointed through the passage of legislation and would have roles similar to those that already exist.

The appointment of freedom commissioners might just put an end to the leftist echo chamber that is the current Australian Human Rights Commission.

The commission has an endemic balance problem. Rights based on constraining government power are consistently trumped by rights that necessitate government intervention.

In part, this is a structural dilemma caused by the appointment of commissioners responsible for promoting left-wing rights. The commission has four anti-discrimination commissioners — one each for age, disability, race and sex — as well as a commissioner for social justice.

Ultimately, the best policy to achieve protection of traditional human rights is the complete abolition of the commission. But if the commission must continue to exist, structural reform is essential.

Triggs appears to acknowledge the imbalance problem. She believes it has arisen as a result of the legislation that established both the commission itself, and the individual commissioners.

In answering Brandis's discerning questions, she responded that the commission had ''one hand tied behind its back'' when it came to promoting freedom of speech.

That's partially right, but it's also a bit of a cop-out. Proponents of the current structure of the commission habitually point to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as evidence to support the commission's focus on discrimination and social justice.

Reference to the ICCPR is often used as if it's a knock-down argument because the covenant includes a right to non-discrimination.

But this is a case of shameless cherry-picking.

The same covenant also protects rights to freedom of speech, association and religion, while the Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes a right to private property. Yet none of these rights are championed by the commission.

Indeed, if the UN conception of human rights really does form the basis for the current functions of the commission, this provides a good argument in favour of including freedom commissioners.

The commission's most recent foray into public debate demonstrates how necessary reform is. The commission has come under fire in recent months over its response to the government's draft Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill. The draft bill poses a clear threat to freedom of speech by making offensive and insulting conduct unlawful in certain contexts.

The commission's written submission to the Senate inquiry into the draft bill completely fails to address the threat it poses to our freedoms. Worse, its submission calls for even greater restrictions on speech.

It's appalling that Australia's taxpayer-funded Human Rights Commission would actively campaign for increased restrictions on freedom of speech. But this shouldn't come as a surprise. The commission was deeply involved in the drafting of the bill and desperately wants to see it become law.

Triggs recently said the words ''offend'' and ''insult'' should be removed. But, in an interview last weekend, she admitted the sole reason for this concession was the critical public reaction.

Triggs even implied the commission would lobby to reintroduce these words into the legislation at a later stage, stating that the public wasn't ready for such a restraint on free speech ''at the moment''.

This is not a recent phenomenon. It's a trend.

The only time the commission talks about freedom of speech is when it is trying to decide how it should be limited.

A crude but interesting indication about what occupies the commission's time is revealed by the frequency with which particular terms are mentioned on its website. Strikingly, the term ''discrimination'' appears 12,200 times, while ''freedom of speech'' and ''free speech'' accrue a measly 649.

And there are more direct examples of the commission's distorted priorities. In 2011, the commission intervened in Clarke v Nationwide News.

The case, which involved the company that publishes this newspaper, concerned a claim made under the Racial Discrimination Act.

The commission's outline of submissions was explicit on the question of priorities between competing rights. It argued that anti-discrimination law should be given a ''liberal construction'' and free speech protections ''construed narrowly''.

The imbalance is there for all to see. And until freedom commissioners are appointed it will continue to advocate against traditional human rights.

Structural reform is the only thing that can save the commission from itself.

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RICHARD J WOOD

Today, those who subscribe to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, the free market, and the rule of law call themselves by a variety of terms, including conservative, libertarian, classical liberal, and liberal.

I see problems with all of those terms.

"Conservative" smacks of an unwillingness to change, of a desire to preserve the status quo.

Only in Australia do people seem to refer to free-market capitalism — the most progressive, dynamic, and ever-changing system the world has ever known — as conservative.

Additionally, many contemporary Australian conservatives favour state intervention in some areas, most notably in trade and into our private lives.

"Classical liberal" is a bit closer to the mark, but the word "classical" connotes a backward-looking philosophy.

Finally, "liberal" may well be the perfect word in most of the world — the liberals in societies from China to Iran to South Africa to Argentina are supporters of human rights and free markets — but its meaning has clearly been corrupted by contemporary Australian liberals.

The philosophy that animates my work has increasingly come to be called "libertarianism" or "market liberalism."

It combines an appreciation for entrepreneurship, the market process, and lower taxes with strict respect for civil liberties and scepticism about the benefits of both the welfare state and foreign military adventurism.

The market-liberal vision brings the wisdom of the Australian Founders to bear on the problems of today.

As did the Founders, it looks to the future with optimism and excitement, eager to discover what great things women and men will do in the coming century.

Market liberals appreciate the complexity of a great society, they recognise that socialism and government planning are just too clumsy for the modern world.

It is — or used to be — the conventional wisdom that a more complex society needs more government, but the truth is just the opposite.

The simpler the society, the less damage government planning does.

Planning is cumbersome in an agricultural society, costly in an industrial economy, and impossible in the information age.

Today collectivism and planning are outmoded and backward, a drag on social progress.

Market liberals have a cosmopolitan, inclusive vision for society.

We reject the bashing of gays, Japan, rich people, and immigrants that contemporary liberals and conservatives seem to think addresses society's problems.

We applaud the liberation of blacks and women from the statist restrictions that for so long kept them out of the economic mainstream.

Our greatest challenge today is to extend the promise of political freedom and economic opportunity to those who are still denied it, in our own country and around the world.